


Our Own Side || A Good Omens Fic

by probably_publius



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam meant well, Adoption, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angst, Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Not Good With Kids (Good Omens), Aziraphale is the dramatic one, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Demon Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Everyone is an idiot, Festive setting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst and Happy Ending, Fluff and Humor, Foster Care, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Funny, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I'm struggling with British English, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Minor Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Minor Character Death, Not much action till the final chapters, POV Third Person, Pets, Post-Canon, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley when she's Nanny Ashtoreth (Good Omens), Slow Burn, Swearing, They/Them Pronouns for Michael (Good Omens), When you accidentally adopt a child, Wings, Ze/Zir Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), calling aziraphale his bff, combination of book and show canon, friends is synonymous to lovers, i mean you guys have seen the show you know what their relationship is, i should be studying for finals, isn't the same as confessing his undying love, maybe crowley doesn't read enough to know that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28123269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/probably_publius/pseuds/probably_publius
Summary: "Crowley groaned. He never had luck dealing with feelings. Especially with the feelings of a particular fussy angel. But nevertheless he approached Aziraphale and placed his hands on his trembling shoulders. 'Hey, maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe you’ll only turn halfway demon? We’re on our own side, remember? Not demons or angels.'"It's five days till Christmas and Crowley and Aziraphale have a problem. A problem not as big as Armageddon, but still a big problem. The angel's wings are slowly turning black and the demon's wings are slowly turning white.Feeling separated from their previous sides, the duo has to finally understand what it's like to be on their own side.And if things couldn't become anymore stressful, it seems as if the two have accidentally adopted an 11-year-old boy who just so happens to be the third child born in the Satanic church.Note that I am not religious nor do I have much biblical knowledge. I do not mean to offend anyone if I write things that are incorrect.I hope you like this fic, it's my first in this fandom. I'm a huge huge fan of Good Omens and Ineffable Husbands. Yes, I take and greatly appreciate constructive feedback.Plan to finish by New Years.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 56





	1. Children's Books

It was the ninetieth day of the rest of their lives, roughly three months since Armageddon, and five days till Christmas. The angel who had helped stop Armageddon was currently stocking his bookshop for the holidays. Aziraphale had been re-arranging his bookshelves for a while now, since adding an entire section to one’s bookshelf tends to mess things up a bit.

The Antichrist— _former_ Antichist—a sweet young boy named Adam, had introduced Aziraphale to children's books, which actually sold really well to a crowd of young customers. And now the A.Z. Fell Bookshop had an entire section dedicated to younger readers.

“I never understood why you never had childrens books before,” the demon Crowley had said when Aziraphale told him about the books one night when they were grabbing a bite to eat. (They had sushi.) “I mean you’ve had your bookshop for… what? One or two centuries? And you’ve never thought of getting books for kids?”

“Well, I’ve been hesitant to invite children into my bookshop,” the angel had answered. “They can be quite messy. Imagine if a child spilled their ice cream cone on one of my first editions.”

“Eh, you have plenty first- limited- rare- whatever editions,” Crowley shrugged.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad,” Aziraphale said. “My books have been through a lot.”

“Right.” Crowley suddenly turned somber.

“Oh. I wasn’t talking about _that_. I just meant that some of my older books have been worn a bit. Mother Shipton even spilled wine on one of my books.” Aziraphale paused waiting for Crowley to make a comment, but the demon stayed silent. “You don’t like to talk about it d’you? When my shop bur-”

“Nah,” Crowley quickly said before Aziraphale could finish.

“You don’t have to worry about it anymore, my dear. It’s in the past. No, not in the past. It never happened and the shop’s fine.”

“Not the shop I was worried about,” Crowley mumbled. “I don’t see why you’ve got to stock up before the holidays. I mean, who buys a book as a gift? Er, no offense to you and your books.”

If anyone was to be offended, it’d be Crowley who bought a book, a box of sweets, and a bottle of wine for Aziraphale every Christmas Eve. The sweets and wine would be gone the next morning and the books would go straight to Aziraphale’s personal collection, the books that were not for sale.

“But kids. I’m surprised you hate kids so much.”

“I don’t _hate_ kids- I mean, children. I’m simply annoyed by them. I can’t hate anybody, I am an _angel._ ”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t hate kids. I bet Gabriel hates kids.” Crowley said the Archangel’s name with disgust.

Aziraphale laughed. “Gabriel hates anyone who isn’t a perfect saint. I wonder what he thinks of me ever since the whole… execution.”

“Eh, he may not be too fond of you,” mumbled Crowley, who never told Aziraphale how Gabriel acted at the angel’s execution.

“He hasn’t been in touch, you know. Gabriel and the angels. Have you heard anything from your peo- the demons?” Crowley didn’t like it when Aziraphale referred to Heaven and Hell as their people.

“Nothing.”

“I can still do miracles so they haven’t cut that off yet.”  
“Well, demons never lost the ability to do miracles when they fell. We just have weaker abilities.”

“I just hope my miracles don't grow too weak, in case we have to deal with anything big again.”

It may have not been as big of a problem as Armegeadon but climbing to the top shelf in his bookshop was a problem that required an angelic ability. Rather than pull out the rickety old ladder from the back to grab some out-of-reach books, Aziraphale stretched out his wings and flew to the top.

It was late in the night, so Aziraphale wasn’t afraid of being seen. Right now, most of London would be at home or asleep. Aziraphale didn’t do too much sleeping, that was more of a Crowley hobby.

Aziraphale flew back to the floor and proudly looked at his retrieved books. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His prized books went crashing to the floor.

_Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!_ The sound of the phone ringing pierced the beautiful silence of the flat. Its occupant groaned in bed, having been woken up from a nap he’d been planning to take till Christmas. Maybe longer if he hadn’t had places to be.

Crowley pulled the pillow over his ears and waited for the ansa-phone to automatically pick up the call. _Hey, this is Anthony Crowley. You know what to do. Do it with style. Beep._

The sound of familiar rambling came from the ansa-phone. Crowley groaned again. As he had suspected, the caller was the only person who would call him at this ungodly hour.

Crowley got up and picked up the phone. “What’s wrong, Angel?”

“I just told you,” Aziraphale said, sounding panicked. “Were you not listening.”

“Nah, you were speaking too fast. Say it again but _slower_.”

Aziraphale restarted his story. “Well, I was in my bookshop, stocking up for the last few days before Christmas and organizing my books when-”  
“Eh, now you’re going too slow. Look, would it be easier if I just came over?”  
“Yes, please. I’d like that.”

“Right. See you in a bit, Angel.”

And a few minutes later, Crowley was standing in the center of Aziraphale’s bookshop, dark glasses covering his tired, yellow eyes. Crowley could see Aziraphale was bothered by the time his commute took, but it was midnight which meant there were less victims—er, pedestrians for the Bently to run over.

“Well,” Crowley announced, stretching his arms out. “I’m here. What do you need me for?”

“Right… erm.” Aziraphale wrung his hands. “I was here… a-and I needed to get a book from... up there” He pointed up high somewhere on the bookshelf.

“Just get to the point!” Crowley hissed, rather cranky to have been woken up.

Aziraphale nodded and composed himself. He took a deep breath and spread his wings out, the tips of the feathers brushing against his books.

Crowley was silent.

“So… d’you see? I called you over here ‘cos-”

“Wait, I don’t see it,” Crowley said, very confused.

“You don’t? How can you- oh.” Aziraphale sighed. “Take off your glasses. I don’t know how you see with those tinted lenses.”

Crowley did so, revealing yellow eyes that resembled those of a serpent. He looked at the angel’s wings. “Oh.”

Aziraphale’s wings, which were normally pure white, now had a few black feathers disrupting the uniformity.

“So d’you see?” Aziraphale’s voice had reached a sound of urgency. Tears welled up in the angel’s brown eyes. “They’ve been white for nearly six thousand years and now…”

Crowley looked at the wings again. “They look fine. If that’s what you were worried about. It looks better than just boring ol’ white.”

“Crowley! I’m worried! My wings are turning black! I think I might be-” Aziraphale looked around and turned his voice down to a whisper “-turning into a _demon_.”

Crowley shook his head. “Nah, it doesn't go this slow. It’s more a falling than a-”

“‘Sauntering vaguely downward’? Isn’t that what you say happened?”

“Well… yeah. But I meant that metaphorically. I still fell. Crashed into a burning heap of feathers.” Crowley shuddered remembering the pain he was in after falling. He suddenly worried if Aziraphale was in any pain. “It doesn't hurt, does it?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “I feel fine.” But the angel looked at the floor again. “Six thousand years…” he muttered.

Crowley groaned. He never had luck dealing with feelings. Especially with the feelings of a particular fussy angel. But nevertheless he approached Aziraphale and placed his hands on his trembling shoulders. “Hey, maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe you’ll only turn halfway demon? We’re on our own side, remember? Not demons or angels.”

Crowley stretched his own wings out, thinking his fully demonic wings would make the angel feel better.

Aziraphale looked up at Crowley’s wings. “Oh my god,” he gasped.

“What now?” Crowley jerked his head and looked at his feathers. “Oh… great.”

Snaking their way through Crowley’s black plumage were specks of white, opposite but identical to Aziraphale’s wings.


	2. Don't call me Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A real short chapter for y'all. More is coming soon. Enjoy!

“This isn’t good,” Crowley said, looking at his wings.

“Oh, now you agree with me?” Aziraphale asked accusingly.

“Of course I agree with you,” Crowley hissed. “It’s my wings that are turning colors.”

Aziraphale continued arguing while Crowley plucked a white feather from his wings and examined it. It didn’t feel any different from his normal feathers, except for the fact that it was a pure white.

“I mean, these wings have been on this earth for six thousands years. It makes sense they change colors,” Crowley spoke, interrupting Aziraphale’s rambling.

Aziraphale gave Crowley a look. “You’re saying that the reason our wings are swapping colors… is because they’re old?”

Crowley shrugged. “Dunno, maybe.”

Aziraphale sighed. He was too nice to call Crowley stupid.

“Fine. Then maybe it’s just this: we’re becoming less like our previous sides. I’m no longer a demon, and you’re no longer an angel.” Crowley said it surprisingly calmly, especially looking at the fact that just a few months ago he couldn’t stand being called nice.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, still had a problem with being called demonic, and grew angry, dropping all niceties. “This is all your fault!” he growled surprisingly good for an angel. “If we had never teamed up-”

“Aziraphale, we _had_ to team up. To stop the end of the world, remember? If we had never teamed up, you and your bookshop wouldn't be standing her-”

“I wouldn’t be standing here with black feathers in my wings!” Aziraphale yelled.

Crowley stepped back, surprised. “Angel, I don’t-”

“Don’t call me that,” Aziraphale said, his voice quiet.

“What? Angel? But I’ve been calling you that for s-”

“Six thousand years,” Aziraphale finished. “I know. But you said it yourself… m’not an angel anymore.”

“Ang- Aziraphale, look-”

“Please leave, Crowley. I need time to think. You can go back to bed.”

But Crowley didn’t want to go back to sleep. He wanted to comfort Aziraphale.

“Please leave,” Aziraphale asked again.

This time Crowley listened. When he opened the door, letting a gust of cold winter air into the bookshop, he bid adieu to Aziraphale. “Good night…” He trailed off where he would normally say Angel.

Crowley closed the door behind and stood on the pavement, pondering for a moment. See? He never had much luck dealing with feelings.

Crowley returned his glasses to his face and shrugged off the freezing cold temperatures. It was the wrong night to be cold-blooded. He returned to the Bently and spared one last glance into the bookshop’s windows where he could see Aziraphale pacing nervously. “Good luck… _Angel_ ,” he whispered before driving off.


	3. Plans

When Crowley woke up the next morning, he had hoped that what had happened at the bookshop was just a dream. But he knew it wasn’t. Demons weren’t supposed to have dreams. And demons weren’t supposed to hope. Crowley did do these things however; although, most of his hopes and dreams included him talking to Freddie Mercury or going on car-rides in the countryside with Aziraphale.

“Should I go over there?” Crowley asked aloud. “To go check on him? See if he’s alright?”

Crowley obviously got no answer, as he was alone in his flat.

“Ngk, prob’ly shouldn’t,” he said, answering himself. “I mean, he obviously isn’t alright with turning into a demon and everything.”

“But if he’s turning into a demon—or at least a half-demon, I ought to be there for him. And we’re in this together, we’ve been together for six thousands years.”

Crowley chuckled to himself. “Six thousand years… and you just got onto calling each other ‘best friends’.”

“You shouldn’t go. He’ll yell at you again.”

Crowley sighed. “Aziraphale always yells at me. Despite what he says, he has a short temper... I should go. My wings are turning colors too, and I’d like to find out what it’s all about.”

Crowley was about to protest but he ignored himself. There were many people in this world that Crowley couldn’t stand to talk to, and that included himself. So Crowley rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, got up, put on a jacket and his signature sunglasses, and grabbed the keys to the Bentley.

When Crowley arrived at the bookshop, Aziraphale was still pacing the floor. Crowley frowned through the window. “Satan, he’s still at it? He’s gonna weather a hole in the floor.”

Crowley approached the door to enter the shop, but not before he was stopped by a middle-aged woman, looking apprehensively at the closed sign. “Sir, I don’t think we’re allowed in there yet. Which is quite odd, since the shop was supposed to open thirty minutes ago. I tried knocking but the owner doesn’t seem to hear me.”

Crowley groaned silently. “Look, lady. The owner’s not gonna open his shop today. Why don’t you go somewhere else and buy a better gift than a book for Christmas?”

Crowley attempted to reach the door once more but was stopped again. “Then why are you going in, sir?”

“I’m buying a book. A Christmas gift,” Crowley answered, finally entering the shop and leaving the woman behind him. She tried to get in after him, but found the door had suddenly been locked.

“Hey, Aziraphale,” Crowley greeted, swiftly grabbing a book from a nearby table. “Got you a present. A truce, so please don’t be angry at me.”

Aziraphale turned towards Crowley. He looked even more manic than last night, proving to Crowley that he had indeed been pacing all night. Aziraphale took the book from Crowley’s hands and placed it right back where it had been. 

“I shouldn’t have gotten cross with you last night. Forgive me,” Aziraphale spoke quietly.

Crowley shrugged. “You’re fine.” Beneath the sunglasses, he put on a look of concern. Aziraphale looked very tired. “Anyway, I was hoping today we could go do something relaxing.” Satan knew Aziraphale needed something relaxing. “What would you say to some ice-cream at the park—no, much too cold for that. Maybe get some coco and stay—”

“It’s getting worse,” Aziraphale said. Crowley wasn’t sure if the angel had even been listening to him. “The feathers.”

Crowley hesitated. “Oh?” He was answered with a nod. “Look, I’ve gotta say, that I am slightly worried as well. But you need to calm down. Your time isn’t spent well with you worrying and tearing yourself apart. You need to calm down, An— dude.” The word felt weird coming from Crowley’s mouth. He didn’t believe he’d ever said that word before. And he was sure he'd never say it again.

But Aziraphale wasn’t listening. He was closing the blinds to the windows facing the streets where a very anxious woman was trying to get the attention of Aziraphale and Crowley. When the blinds were closed and no one could see, Aziraphale unfolded his wings.

Crowley had to admit that it didn’t look good. The wings were now nearly one-quarter black feathers. Crowley knew that if he unfolded his wings, he’d find the same with white.

Aziraphale quickly put his wings away. He didn’t really like looking at them now. “Anyway, I was thinking that today we could scour my shop for anything that may help us. Perhaps a home-remedy for color-changing wings or a prophecy or... something.” Aziraphale met Crowley’s gaze. “You’ll help me, won’t you?”

Crowley sighed and crossed his arms. There went his plans for the day. “Sure, whatever you need.”

A grin spread across Aziraphale’s face and Crowley immediately felt better. “Oh, wondrous! Thank you so much!” Aziraphale pushed Crowley over to a section of the bookshop. “You can start by looking over here.”

As Aziraphale walked off, Crowley called after him. “Angel, what exactly am I looking for again?” But Aziraphale didn’t answer. “Right.” Crowley grabbed a book from the shelf and immediately turned to the index.


	4. A Nap, a Date, and an Envelope

Aziraphale slammed another book shut in frustration. Well, he slammed shut his precious book as hard as he could bear. He was frustrated because he and Crowley had been searching for an answer all day, and Aziraphale hadn’t yet found an alternative to his first idea.

Of course Aziraphale had always had an idea. He’d had the idea ever since his rebellion after the world ended. But it was much too risky. Much too dangerous.

“Have you found anything over there yet, Crowley?” Aziraphale called to the other end of the bookshop. Aziraphale glanced at his desktop’s digital clock and found that they had been working for nearly eight hours. Aziraphale suddenly realized that he had yet to eat anything today. “How about we take a break? We can grab a bite to eat and then get right back at it?”

Crowley was silent. He had been silent the entire day. Aziraphale knew that Crowley had been searching so hard that he hadn’t even had time to talk. The old serpent probably was so deep in a book that he hadn’t even heard Aziraphale, so he made his way across the shop to alert him.

“We missed tea time, y’know? We should prob’ly get something to eat. We could go out or find something here in the kitchen,” Aziraphale continued talking as he made his way through the maze of shelves.

“Crowley? Can you even hear me?” Aziraphale rounded a corner and started walking down the aisle where he had first placed Crowley. “Where is he—oough!” Aziraphale fell forward, having tripped over something.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale gasped, looking at his friend’s sleeping body. Crowley was curled up on the floor hugging a book to his chest. His ginger hair was slightly mussed and his glasses lay nearly a meter away from him. “Did you fall asleep?”

No answer.

“Crowley?!” Aziraphale repeated a little louder.

“Ngk,” Crowley muttered, turning away from Aziraphale.

“Anthony J. Crowley!!” Aziraphale demanded, kicking the sleeping demon not-so-gently.

Crowley immediately jumped up. “I’m awake! I’m awake!” Crowley looked down at the frustrated angel. “Oh, heya, Aziraphale. How’s it hanging?” He yawned. “I wasn’t asleep if that’s what you were wondering.”

“How long have you been out?” asked Aziraphale, not buying Crowley’s lie for a second.

“Dunno. Since a half ‘til noon. What time is it now?”

“Seven.”

“Ah. I see.” Crowley stood up straighter and stretched. “I’m sorry, Angel. I’ll make it up to you. Dinner on me?”

Aziraphale cracked a smirk. He was so amused with Crowley that he hadn’t even realized that he had been called Angel again. “Deal.”

Crowley happily flicked his tongue and returned his glasses to his face. “Great. I’ll drive.”

~~~

Crowley and Aziraphale returned to the bookshop laughing. Perhaps Crowley was right, going out _did_ take Aziraphale’s mind off of things. But the harsh memory of what was happening to their wings came crashing down on Aziraphale when he saw the books piling up in the bookshop. Or, at least on the side of the bookshop that Aziraphale had been searching.

“Well, thank you for the date, dear,” Aziraphale said.

 _Date?_ Crowley mouthed to himself. _Dear?_

“But we really should return to our search,” Aziraphale continued.

“Ah, n’y’don’t,” Crowley said, snatching Aziraphale by the tartan collar and dragging him to an armchair in the corner of the small store-room/office. “We should relax for the rest of the night. We have been searching _all day_.”

“ _I_ have been searching all day,” Aziraphale corrected, standing up. “And I want to search more. I need _answers_.”

“What you need,” Crowley said, pushing the stubborn angel back into his chair. “Is to relax. We can watch one of those American Christmas films. _Home Alone._ I like that one. I wanted to set up one of those… trappy things for Hastur and Ligur with Holy Water, but I thought it too risky.”

“Do you think you touch Holy Water now?” Aziraphale pondered. “With the white feathers?”

Crowley gave Aziraphale a dangerous smirk. “Wanna find out?”

“Oh God, no.” Aziraphale knew Crowley was joking, but experimenting with Holy Water was something that he wouldn’t be surprised to find the curious demon doing.

“Okay, _Home Alone_!” Crowley grabbed the film from the bookshop’s very small digital section containing a few VHS tapes and DVD discs and popped the movie in. He took his place lounging in the chair beside Aziraphale.

As the two watched the film, Crowley felt his eyes drawn to Aziraphale’s desk. Having lots of practice resisting demonic temptations, Crowley was able to keep himself from peering at his dear friend’s desk for a while. But half-way through the film, Crowley couldn’t concentrate. He felt as if he couldn’t survive without sneaking a glance at the desk. This was a strong temptation; something demonic was definitely at hand here.

“Argh,” Crowley growled quietly as to not distract Aziraphale who was watching the telly. He quickly looked over at the desk. He was only going to glance at it for a second—less than a second, but his eyes landed on a large green envelope and felt another temptation. He gave into this one much quicker.

“What’s this?” Crowley asked casually, standing up, grabbing the envelope, and reading the address. “ _Tadfield Orphanage_?”

“What was that, dear?” Aziraphale asked, peeling his eyes away from the telly and looking up at the red-haired demon who was looking through Aziraphale’s mail.

“An envelope,” Crowley said, waving the green envelope at Aziraphale as if he couldn’t already see that.

“Yes, I know. But from who?”

 _The Tadfield Orphanage_ ? Crowley thought to himself. _I didn’t even know Tadfield had an orphanage? Why would Aziraphale contact an orphanage? He hates kids._

“It’s from the Tadfield Orphanage,” Crowley repeated once more, aloud. “Addressed to Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley.”

“That’s strange,” Aziraphale said, pausing the remote and meeting Crowley at the desk. “Why would an orphanage write to you and me? Open it.”

Crowley did so and gave the paper inside to Aziraphale to read.

_Dear Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley,_

_We here at the Tadfield Orphanage (est. 2019) have reviewed your request for fostering the 11-year-old boy Greasy Johnson—who has been here his entire life, he never had a family so don’t ask—and have agreed to allow you to foster the boy for 30 days. You can come pick up Johnson, his fish, and his things tomorrow morning at our location in Tadfield._

_-Tadfield Orphanage_

The angel and demon looked at each other with confusion. “What the heaven?!” the bastard angel cried as the nice demon hissed “What the hell?!”

“Did you arrange this?” accused Aziraphale. “Did you arrange for us to foster a human child?”

“Why in hell, would I do that, Aziraphale?” asked Crowley. “No, I did not.”

“Well, someone had to have done it. Someone signed us up to be foster parents.” Aziraphale re-read the letter. “What’s wrong with this letter?”

“Well, firstly, the color of the paper is just hideous,” Crowley pointed out. “And, I don’t think Tadfield had an orphanage last time we were there. Although, it does say that it was established this year. But why would a brand new orphanage be harboring an 11-year-old boy? Named Greasy Johnson?”

Aziraphale pointed out, “It does say that he’es been there his entire life but that is impossible. And that sentence is clearly suspicious. But, children can be orphaned at any age, y’know?” 

“Ehh, unlikely. Tadfield is the perfect village for a kid. Besides Adam, the place is annoyingly safe.”

“What did you say?” Aziraphale asked.

“Tadfield’s safe. _Very_ safe. It’s infuriating.”

“No! About the boy.”

Crowley thought back to what he had said. “Adam? The Antichrist? What about him? Oooh… you really think _he_ arranged this?”

“Who else would call a fellow 11-year old by a rude nickname?”

“Really… any and all 11-year-old kids,” Crowley answered.

Aziraphale frowned, no doubt remembering Warlock and his rude friends at the birthday party. Aziraphale was quite proud of his magic skills and didn’t appreciate being called rubbish. Even Crowley wasn’t that mean.

“Well, what are we to do about this?” he asked.

Crowley shrugged. “Suppose we should just call down there and tell them it’s a mistake. Maybe tell that Antichrist kid to not to do it again.”

The two looked down at the letter and back at each other. Without speaking, they knew they were thinking the same thing. It was Christmas, and they couldn’t turn down an orphan.

“We’ll take the Bentley there, first thing tomorrow,” Crowley announced.

Aziraphale nodded agreeingly with a grim expression on his face. He didn’t really want to foster a kid, especially right now with… everything.

“Hey, cheer up, Aziraphale,” Crowley said, happily. “It’ll be just like old times when we raised Warlock. And he was a pleasant kid.”

“ _Pleasant?_ ” muttered Aziraphale, recalling memories of that demonic yet completely normal human child. He had always thought that Warlock acted like the spawn of Satan because he _was_ the spawn of Satan.

“It’ll be fun! Loads of fun!” Crowley was dealing with this very well. “‘Ight, I’m going to bed. Mind if I crash here?” Crowley jumped back into his seat and took his jacket and glasses off.

“Not at all,” Aziraphale answered habitually. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

Crowley yawned. “G’night, Angel.”

Aziraphale snapped back to reality and looked at his slumbering companion. “ _Angel_ …” It still bothered him.


	5. A Boy and his Fish

Aziraphale sighed as he put up a sign that read  _ Closed till further notice / We are sorry for any inconveniences  _ in the front window of his shop. He had been preparing for these final days till Christmas but it seemed that it had all gone down the drain. Perhaps if he and Crowley could solve this whole wing problem in the next four days, and perhaps if Johnson didn’t prove to be a nuisance, Aziraphale could still make a few holiday sales.

But Aziraphale doubted it. It had only been a little over twenty-four hours since he had noticed the black feathers on his wings, yet so much had changed. He had lost that can-do peppiness he normally possessed. Now it felt like Crowley was the optimistic one. It was so strange, Aziraphale never felt this bad, especially around the holidays. Aziraphale just didn’t feel like the same angel… but he supposed that it was because he  _ was _ no longer an angel. 

“Hey, Aziraphale,” Crowley greeted, meeting him by the front door. “Sleep well?”

Aziraphale shook his head. He never really slept unless he had nothing else to do, but if he had slept that night, he was sure that he wouldn’t have done so soundly.

“Ready to go?” Crowley asked, jingling the keys to the Bentley.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Aziraphale sighed, following Crowley out to his car.

His angel’s strange behavior did not go amiss by Crowley. Not once during the entire car ride through the London streets did he shout for Crowley to slow the hell down you’re gonna  _ kill _ someone. Crowley even got dangerously close to running a few Christmas shoppers over on purpose to coax a reaction out of Aziraphale. He contemplated actually running someone over, but he wanted to try and not kill anyone. He’d made it about seven centuries kill-free and wanted to keep it that way.

When they reached locked traffic in the M25, Crowley spoke. They’d be there for a while, afterall. “You don’t have to do this if y’don’t want to,” he said, taking his hands off the wheel. “Don’t think you have to do this just because you’re an ang—a bloody nice person.”

Aziraphale scowled. “I’m not doing this just because I think I have to.”

“Oh yeah?” Crowley asked suspiciously. He was fairly certain his friend was doing this just to prove he still had some angel left him. To prove he was still a nice person. Crowley didn’t think Aziraphale needed to prove that.

“No, I am not,” Aziraphale stated again.

Crowley scoffed. He hadn’t meant to do it aloud, but he supposed he was still demonic enough to be rude. “Do you think perhaps… that if I’m turning less like a demon and you less like an angel, we might be losing our immortality?”

Aziraphale’s eyes grew wide. “God, I hope not! But I highly doubt it. I mean, we still got our wings and we can still do miracles.” The traffic started to move faster. No doubt it was Aziraphale proving his point.

“Alright!” Crowley hissed happily, glad to be moving again. “Thanks, Angel.”

“Aziraphale,” he corrected.

“Right.”

Finally, the traffic allowed the Bentley to reach the quaint village of Tadfield. Crowley slowed to a less-than-dangerous speed when driving through the neighborhood streets. “I’m gonna stop the car here,” he announced to Aziraphale when he spotted a proud man walking with his dog.

Crowley pulled beside the man on the sidewalk. “Hallo, sir. Could you tell me where I can find Adam… Young, is it? And then where we can find the Tadfield Orphanage?”

The man looked at the sunglassed man and blinked. He looked at the Bentley and blinked. R.P Tyler, the neighborhood watch, had a vague memory of seeing this  _ exact _ man in this  _ exact _ car before. Then, the car had been on fire.

But now, the car looked perfectly fine. Not dented, not scorched, not the burning hunk of metal Tyler could recall, so he supposed he was having an incorrect memory. He cleared his throat. “Why, of course, sir. The Young boy lives on Hogsback Lane. But, if you, don’t mind me asking, what do you need him for?”

Another voice spoke from the car, alerting R.P Tyler that there was another man in there, clad all in white, opposite to his partner’s all black outfit. Tyler started drafting the complaint he’d make to the newspaper about couples these days that thought they were cute with matching outfits. The all-white man spoke, “We need to find him because he seems to be making us foster a child. You see, we got a letter saying that we must pick up this orphan, but we never contacted the orphanage here. We believe Adam Young to be behind this.”

“Excuse me?” asked R.P Tyler, catching absolutely none of that, for he was too busy drafting in his head.

The all-black man shushed the other. “Aziraphale, let  _ me  _ do the talking. Sir, it doesn’t matter what Adam did, we just need to talk to him. Now, could you also let us now where the orphanage is?”

R.P Tyler squinted his eyes. “Orphanage? M’fraid I don’t know what you mean? We don’t have an orphanage here, and I don't believe we ever have.”

“I’m pretty sure that there’s an orphanage here,” the all-white man said. “Or, there should be one now.”

R.P Tyler shook his head. “No, sir. We do not.” Tyler knew what he was talking about. He was the neighborhood watch and didn’t like to be told that he was wrong. He took out a foldable map of his town that he kept in the pocket of his sweater. “Since you’re being so insistent on the orphanage being here, I’ll prove it to you.” He unfolded the map and showed the men. “See? No orphanage.”

Crowley glanced at the map. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. “No, there is. Right there, sir.” He pointed at the building labeled Tadfield Orphanage.

R.P Tyler looked at the map again. He sputtered. “If this is some sort of trick...”

“Anyway, thanks for your help, sir.” Crowley drove off. His destination: Hogsback Lane.

Despite the chilly cold air, Adam Young was having a grand time playing outside. When he had first realized that he was the Antichrist and could control the weather, he wanted to make it so Tadfield had perfect summer weather all year long. But he soon grew bored of summer and restored the perfect chilly autumns and the snowy Christmases. He knew it would snow on Christmas Eve in three days, as it had for the last eleven years in Tadfield.

“Dog!” Adam called to the previous Hellhound. Adam threw a ball to his trusty companion who caught the ball in his mouth. Today, it was just Adam and Dog. He hadn’t wanted the Them to meet until later, as he was expecting company.

Adam turned to the road just as a black Bentley appeared around the turn. The car slowed to a stop in front of Adam’s yard and two men got out.

“Adam Young,” greeted one of them. Adam remembered him being the demon Crowley.

“Hello, young boy,” greeted the other, the angel Aziraphale. “We, um, we came to ask you about this letter we received in the mail. Do you happen to know a boy named, uh, Johnson?”

Adam knew what this visit was all about. “Yes. Greasy Johnson is what everyone calls him.”

“Well,” continued Aziraphale. “We were wondering if you happened to, uh, sign us up to foster him?”

“No,” answered Adam.

“Oh. Well then, we are sorry to have bothered you—”

“I signed you up to foster his fish. You fostering him was just an added plus.”

Aziraphale hesitated. “I do beg your pardon.”

“I signed you up to take care of his fish. From the few times that I have met you two, I’ve gathered that you are an odd couple.”

“Oh? Couple?” Aziraphale looked surprised. “We aren’t  _ exactly _ —” 

Crowley shushed him. “Continue, boy.”

“I thought you to be an odd couple because you don’t have anything to look after.” Adam had been reading the  _ New Aquarium Magazines _ that his neighbor Anathema had lent him. His mother and father did not enjoy their son reading what they thought of as foolish rubbish, so his mother had given him some of her magazines. Adam had read one article from her whole pile of magazines but then used them all to create a bonfire in the backwoods with the Them. But, from the one article that he read, Adam remembered reading that all couples should have something to look after, be it a child or a pet. 

“I thought I could get you a dog, but I know many people are afraid of dogs for some reason.” Adam grinned at his harmless Hellhound. 

“I thought of a cat, but I know many people are allergic.” In Adam’s eleven-year-old mind, only three choices of pet existed; dog, cat, and fish. Adam went with the third option to give Crowley and Aziraphale. 

“I know that Greasy Johnson has fish so I thought you could look after his for a while.” Adam smiled at the couple, expecting gratitude for this early Christmas present.

Crowley ran a hand through his red hair and growned. “Oh Satan!”

Aziraphale frowned at Adam. “So… you wanted to get us a pet to look after, but you ended up getting us mixed in with looking after a boy?”

“Yes,” Adam answered. He hoped the two men would hurry up and get Greasy Johnson out of Tadfield. Greasy Johnson ran the rival gang in Tadfield; the Johnsonites. Adam was not very fond of Johnson and his gang.

“Just tell us this,” Crowley said. “This Johnson boy, was he always an orphan or are you taking him away from his family?”

“Oh, he’s always been an orphan,” Adam said. This was completely true… at least, in the new reality Adam had created.

Aziraphale looked at Adam. “You see, Adam, this isn’t really the best time for us to be fostering a child. What with the holidays and this… other problem that needs tending to…”

“Y’know keeping a small pet like a fish can be good for stress.”

Crowley groaned.

“We were just hoping that you could possibly undo everything?” Aziraphale continued. “Make it so we were never signed up for this?”

Adam shook his head. “I could, but where’s the fun in that? Erasing what I just did? I mean, if you don’t want to foster the fish and Greasy Johnson, you can just go to the orphanage and tell them that.”

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale wanted to do that, so they just supposed that they’d have to go through with fostering the child. They bid Adam a merry Christmas and drove to the orphanage.

Previous-sister Mary Loquacious was very confused. She had woken up today and drove to work to find she worked at the Tadfield Orphanage where a single boy lived. This was strange because she could’ve sworn that yesterday she worked at a place where groups could practice team-building exercises. Though, Mary didn’t entirely trust herself because she also remembered being a Satanic nun. So she had just laughed at herself and went to work.

The boy, known as Greasy Johnson, was being picked up today to be fostered. If Johnson were to get adopted and the orphanage became empty, Mary wouldn’t know what she would do. She had, after all, been working at the orphanage for as long as she could remember.

“Are you all packed up, young man?” Mary Loquacious asked from her desk.

Johnson nodded. He sat at the far end of the room with his belongings in a large box beside him. In his hands he held a clear plastic bag full of fish. Greasy Johnson was just what his name conveyed. He has large for eleven, almost as large as grown adult. The only thing that made his youth obvious was his lack of good hygiene. Greasy Johnson had a very greasy face and very greasy hair. This and his mean expression didn’t make him the sort of boy others would want to be friends with, so Johnson was notorious for being a bit of a loner and a bit of a bully.

Currently, however, Johnson was very nervous. “What if they don’t like me?” asked the boy.

“Well that’d be very stupid of them,” answered Mary. “They did sign up to foster you themselves, didn’t they?”

Johnson nodded again. The boy was also very confused. This morning he had woken up from a dream where he had had a loving family and a group of friends. But when he woke up, he found that he was nothing but a poor orphan, nervous about getting a new family.

“I hope they have enough room for my fish,” Johnson said. His fish were his pride and joy and he cared for them deeply, winning little prizes for them at county fairs.

“They should be here any moment now,” announced Mary.

As soon as she said that, the doors to the orphanage opened and in walked two intimidating looking men. One was tall and wore all black. He had bright red hair and wore sunglasses over his eyes. The other was a short and stout man who wore all white. Johnson didn’t like the energy the two gave him, they seemed very powerful and Johnson didn’t like to be overpowered. When he felt intimidated or scared, he tended to become rude.

“Ah,” said the shorter one. He seemed to be forcing a smile. “You must be Johnson. We are here to let you live with us for a while.”

Johnson scowled up at the man.

“I, um, I’m Aziraphale and this is Crowley.” He pointed at the other man who gave him a nod.

“Why do you wear sunglasses?” asked Johnson. “Is it because you’re blind?”

“No,” Crowley answered. “I am not blind.”

“Are you sure?” Johnson grinned tauntingly. “Because only someone with imparied vision would choose your husband.”

Aziraphale gasped, but Crowley’s expression didn’t change. He stooped down and lowered his glasses, revealing two yellow eyes with slitted pupils like a snake’s. Johnson didn’t like snakes, they ate fish. “Sit down in the waiting room,” he said, his voice barely a growl. “We have to fill out some paperwork. We’ll talk about this later.”

Johnson sat back down feeling scared and guilty. He had already messed things up.

Aziraphale and Crowley made their way to the desk. “Crowley,” Aziraphale whimpered. “You promised the boy wouldn’t be mean.”

“I didn’t promise anything, A—Aziraphale,” Crowley said. “The boy’s just scared. And kids become defensive when they’re scared.”

“Hpmf. Well, we still _ must _ do something about his behaviour.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll talk to him or whatever.”

They turned to the desk where Mary Loquacious sat.

“Crowley… do we know her?”

Crowley looked at her. “She was the satanic nun. The one that found us in the hallway that one time,” he whispered, amused to find her here.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she greeted them. “I presume you’re here to pick up Johnson?”

“Yes,” said Crowley, snatching a stack of paperwork from the desk and starting to fill it out. He knew Aziraphale hated paperwork.

“How long have you two been married?” Mary asked.

Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other. “Uh, Miss,” Aziraphale said. “We’re not  _ actually _ married.”

“Oh, okay. How long have you been together then?”

“About six thousand years,” Crowley answered, sliding the finished paperwork over the desk.

Mary Loquacious, being surprised at the man’s speed, said,” But sir, you didn’t even have your partner sign.”

“I know how to forge. Are we free to go?”

“Um, yes. Goodbye, Johnson. I hope you have a good time.”

Greasy Johnson got up from his chair and followed the couple. He hoped the snake man wouldn’t eat his fish.


	6. Perfect Little Plants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I just thought I'd write a little filler-chapter to transition to the next big event, but I ended up including some semi-important semi-angst. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I appreciate you guys! <3

Greasy Johnson walked out onto the street to find a shiny, vintage Bentley. Johnson wasn’t one to obsess over cars, but he did appreciate the beauty of this one. In silent awe, he climbed into the back seat of the car, expecting some sort of lecture on good behaviour from Aziraphale and Crowley.

But for most of the car ride, nothing was said. Apart from Crowley occasionally (frequently) cursing at the M25 and Aziraphale asking him to calm down, it was quiet. Johnson couldn’t stand it, so he finally said something. “Look… I’m sorry for what I said back there. I didn’t mean it.”

Aziraphale turned towards him. “I know you didn’t, young man. But you have to understand that you can’t just go around saying things you don’t mean.”

Johnson nodded. “I understand.”

When the traffic finally let up and they made it into London, Aziraphale asked Crowley, “So where do we go? Your flat or my shop?”

Crowley shrugged. “Dunno. Neither are ideal places to raise a child though, are they?”

“No. But could we go to your flat? I mean, my bookshop doesn’t even have a bedroom and you have a spare room for the boy to sleep in. Please?”

“I keep my plants in that spare room, Aziraphale. But... we can try and move some things around.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Oh wondrous!” When they were in miracle distance of the flat, Aziraphale started moving things around.

Johnson still couldn’t shake the feeling that these two men were… something un-human. The snake eyes and the random unexplainable acts fueled Johnson’s suspicions. For example, when they arrived at the flat, Crowley had asked if Johnson needed help for his things. Johnson nodded and not a second later did his bags appear at the top of the stair-case. And Crowley hadn’t even moved from where he was leaning up against his car.

When Johnson was dragging his things inside, following Crowley and Aziraphale. The primer had muttered, “What to move… what to move?”

The latter had put a hand on Crowley’s shoulders. “Don’t you fret. In the car I have already arranged everything.” He led the way down a hall, past a room full of beautiful plants, and into a room that Johnson presumed to be his.

“Woah!” he gasped, dropping his things on the floor and looking at the walls in awe. The room was huge, much larger than any room he could remember having, and the walls were painted green-blue, which happened to be Johnson’s favorite colour. A large bed with colourful sheets stood in the corner next to a desk and a table that was the perfect size for Johnson’s fish-tank.

“Did you miracle all this here?” Crowley whispered. “I thought you hated the boy?”

Aziraphale whispered back, “I don’t  _ hate  _ the boy or any boy-children for that matter. I just thought he ought to have a good room.”

Aziraphale and Crowley left the room while Johnson unpacked. “So what should we do now?” Aziraphale asked. “I should probably head back down to the bookshop, but I don’t think it’d be right for me to just leave right now.”

“How ‘bout you take a day off?” offered Crowley. “We can bring Johnson to the park, grab a bite to eat, and just chill here at my flat. You can even stay here for the night. Your bookshop isn’t going anywhere, Angel.”

“Aziraphale,” he corrected. “But I want to find an answer as soon as possible. I’m thinking if I can’t find anything in my books or on the internet, I’ll pay a visit to the witch Anathema. She might know.”

“And you can do all of that tomorrow,” Crowley said, wrapping an arm around his shorter friend. “I’ll even stay home with Johnson while you do that. But today, let’s just chill, hmm?”

And so that’s what they did. For lunch, Aziraphale wanted sushi (again) but it turns out Johnson wasn’t too keen on eating fish, so they grabbed lunch elsewhere. Afterwards, they stayed at Crowley’s flat watching Christmas movies. Crowley and Johnson were content, but Aziraphale was still very worried.

When the three were watching  _ It’s a Wonderful Life _ , Aziraphale almost lost it. When the famous line: “Everytime a bell rings, and angel gets its wings” was spoken, Aziraphale excused himself and got up from the sofa.

“Where did he go?” Johnson asked.

Crowley watched as Aziraphale entered his plant room. “Oh… he just gets emotional at this part. I’ll, um, I’ll check on him in a moment.”

Aziraphale walked into the room where Crowley kept his beautiful houseplants.  _ So perfect _ , he thought, tenderly touching a green leaf.  _ Crowley loves perfection. I don’t know how he can love me. _ "Perfect little plants... perfect little plants..." Aziraphale kept muttering. He ran a hand over his face. “God, I’m such a  _ mess _ .”

“You’re not a mess, Angel,” Aziraphale heard Crowley say sweetly. He turned around to find him casually leaning against the door frame. He corrected himself, “Aziraphale, sorry.”

“I _am_ a mess, Crowley. I feel like I’m falling apart.”

“I’ve got tape,” Crowley said with a smirk.

“ _ Crowley _ ,” Aziraphale whined. “I’m serious.”

“As am I. I’m saying… if you feel like you’re falling apart… I’ll do anything I can to help you.” Crowley walked towards Aziraphale and put his arms around him. He still didn’t feel like he was good with feelings, but he was trying his best. “But I don’t want you to go to the bookshop tonight. I don’t want you to over-exert yourself looking for an answer. Please, try and get some sleep tonight and I’ll let you search tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Aziraphale agreed, enjoying the hug. By no means were Crowley’s arms warm or soft, but in his embrace Aziraphale felt so… right… perfect, like he wanted to be.

After putting Johnson to bed (the kid fell asleep almost instantly in his new room), Aziraphale followed Crowley to his bedroom. They did not think it weird to share a bed, they’d done it a million times before over the centuries and they never did anything except enjoy each other's company and maybe actually sleep. Tonight, Aziraphale was thinking of doing the latter, as he was feeling uncharacteristically tired.

“I think it’s about time Nanny Ashtoreth made her return,” Crowley muttered as the two started to doze off.

Aziraphale chuckled quietly. “Oh God.”

“M’serious. I recently had the dress laundered and I think Johnson will like her.”

“The nanny was just a disguise, Crowley.”

“I grew attached to her.”

“Is this how you feel when I practice my magic?”

Crowley laughed. “Yeah, m’be. But I made up my mind, I’m going to be her tomorrow.”


	7. A Snowball Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: some swearing (same as in the show), bullying and making fun of Americans (I'm American)
> 
> Also, you may notice that one of these characters will remind you of the book-version of one of the Them. Try to guess which one.

Crowley woke up and immediately pulled his blanket tighter. It was a cold morning and was no doubt snowing outside.  _ Who was the bastard that invented snow again?  _ He wondered.  _ Oh yeah, it was Aziraphale.  _ The angel had created snow as a holiday gift for Crowley, but it turned out snakes didn’t do too well in the snow. “Why do we have to live in bloody England?” he groaned in a sleepy stupor. “Why can’t we move somewhere warmer like back to Africa or Ecuador or—”

He heard a noise from the end of his bed. Sobbing. “Oh no. Aziraphale, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I love the snow… it’s the cold that bothers me.”

The sobbing continued. Crowley sat up and smoothed his hair back. “Aziraphale, what’s wrong?”

“Can I borrow your glasses?” he sniffled.

Crowley grabbed them from his nightstand. That was a random request. “Why?”

“You have plenty of pairs, Crowley. Just let me borrow one.”

“But why?”

“Just let me borrow them!” he demanded.

Crowley held them out, surprised that his angel snapped at him. Aziraphale took them from his hand without turning to look at him.

“Angel, what’s wr—”

“ _ Don’t call me angel!” _ Aziraphale shouted nastily. Then, he fell into a crying heap on Crowley’s bed. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I didn’t mean to shout… I’m so  _ so  _ sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“It’s alright… Aziraphale,” Crowley said.

“Crowley… i— it’s getting worse.” He stood up, took off Crowley’s glasses that fit abnormally on his face, and unfolded his wings. The wings were now more than half-way black. But what really stood out to Crowley, were Aziraphale’s eyes. They had changed from the normal brown into a brighter shade with small, round pupils. They were the eyes of some sort of animal. Or a demon.

“Aziraphale…” Crowley gasped. He didn’t know what to say.

“You said I’d only transform halfway,” Aziraphale said. “And now look at me… look at  _ you _ .”

Crowley unfolded his own wings. Just as he suspected, his wings were majorly white. And when he looked in the mirror, he found that his eyes, though still bright yellow, had a humanistic pupil. Crowley wasn’t too bummed. He’d never liked his eyes, hence him hiding them behind dark glasses.

Aziraphale folded his wings away and put the glasses back on his face. They looked strange on his face and didn’t fit very well. It made it obvious that he was hiding something and it hurt Crowley to see his angel so reserved.

“I— I have to go to the bookshop immediately,” Aziraphale said, standing up hurriedly.

Crowley pouted. “At least join us for breakfast.”

_ “Immediately _ , _ ”  _ he repeated. Crowley didn’t respond and let Aziraphale run out the door.

Crowley sighed. Aziraphale would come around… he always did… even if it took a few centuries. “ _ Shit shit shit shit shit!”  _ he hissed. He and Aziraphale had just saved the whole world and now Crowley’s world had just run out the door. Crowley groaned. No, that thought was too mushy for him.

He stood up and brushed off any bad feelings. He grabbed a pair of sunglasses from his dresser. Nanny Ashtoreth wasn’t complete without her sunglasses. Her sunglasses were a different style than Crowley’s normal glasses, the ones Aziraphale had taken. “Bugger him,” Crowley growled. He thought cursing at his best friend would make him feel better. It did not.

When Nanny Ashtoreth got dressed and miracled hair extensions on, she made her way down the hall to wake Johnson. She wrapped on the door. “It’s time to wake up, War— Johnson.” She caught herself from saying Warlock. In the rip-off Mary Poppins outfit, she was brought back to those days raising the son of the American ambassador along with Brother Francis. She had always thought he was being so dramatic with that silly gardener facade. She didn’t know that he thought the same thing about her nanny disguise.

A moment later, Johnson popped into the hallway, breaking Nanny from her thoughts. “Good morning,” he greeted, a tad confused to find Crowley dressed that way. “Why are you dressed like a woman?”

Ashtoreth didn’t answer but just stated her name and said that Johnson could just call her Nanny. “We’re going to have a fun day today, Johnson, so I advise that you quickly get ready, eat something, and feed your fish. We are going to St. James’s Park.”

The park was one of Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s favorite places. Crowley’s favorite place was his bed and Aziraphale’s favorite place was his bookshop, but collectively their favorite place was here. That’s what Nanny Ashtoreth was thinking about as she gazed at the pond vacated by the ducks that flew south for the winter. “Oh, get over yourself,” she hissed quietly. “It’s not like he’s gone forever. He’s across the street at the bookshop. You just had a little quarrel.”

“Did you say something?” Johnson asked. She had forgotten he was there.

“Nothing. Are you enjoying your time so far?”

“Oh yes,” Johnson said with a smile. “I’ve never seen London in the snow before.”

Ashtoreth sneered. Yes, the snow was lovely, but she had a hard time enjoying the beauty under an uncomfortable number of jackets. It was the wrong time of year to be cold-blooded.

Johnson turned his head to where he heard fellow children laughing. A dozen of them were having a snowball fight. “Can I…?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ashtoreth. “Go play. I’ll wait here and watch if anyone gets killed.”

She leaned against the railing and turned to where Aziraphale was no doubt pacing the floors of his bookshop. If she concentrated real hard, she could faintly see the closed sign on his door. Her mind-wandering was interrupted by screaming children.

Johnson had approached the kids playing in the snow shyly. He was never too popular with the kids in Tadfield and didn’t want to scare the other kids with his size. “Hello,” he greeted.

A girl with freckles and fiery red hair turned towards with a sneer on her face and a ball of weaponized precipitation in her gloved hands. “Wt’d’ya want?”

Another kid, a boy with an unfortunate haircut gave Johnson a look matching that of his red-haired friend. “I bet this pimple head wants to join our game, Pippin,” he laughed.

Johnson grew defensive. “At least I wasn’t born with a stupid complexion,” he said.

The freckled girl’s face became angrier. “Acne can be genetic. So can fat, if you’re American.”

“Hey, I’m from America!” piped up another kid in the group.

“Shuttup, Timmy!” Pippin said, rolling her eyes.

Timmy turned out to be very patriotic and launched a large snowball fight. “For America!!” he shouted, pelting rude Pippin with snowballs.

Snowballs flew in all directions and Johnson was unlucky to be standing in the middle of the fight, unarmed.

A snowball slammed against his face. He screamed.

Ashtoreth groaned. Now she’d have to  _ get involved _ . She moved from her spot by the stream and walked towards the group of children. “Johnson!” she called.

The boy ran towards her clutching the side of his face. “I didn’t start it, I swear.”

“Oh I don’t care if you started it,” she said, leading Johnson over to a spot where they could easily target the other children. “We just need to end it.”

With a devilish smile, she stooped down in the snow and started creating perfectly shaped snowballs. “C’mon, Johnson!” she said cheerily.

Johnson started making snowballs alongside her. “We aren’t going to hurt them, are we?”

“Oh no,” Asthoreth said, a bit sadly. “I’ll make sure no one gets injured. I don’t want to get in trouble... again.”

Before Johnson could ask what that meant, Ashtoreth started throwing snowballs with great aim. With each hit a ‘hey!’ or an ‘oof’ erupted from each target. Johnson was so awed, he’d forgotten about his own snowballs. “You’re quite good at this,” he said.

“I’ve had my practice fighting in a few wars,” Ashtoreth said nonchalantly, as she continued to take down children. “Do you want to get this last one?”

Johnson looked up and saw that one more kid was standing. Red-haired Pippin. With great pleasure, he aimed a snowball right at her freckled nose and took her down. “Yes!” he cheered.

By evening time, Aziraphale had finished checking all the books in his bookshop and scoured the entire internet. He was quite good with computers and was able to surf the entire web in only a few hours. But still, he wasn’t good enough at finding a cure for the wings. “I’ll never find it,” he whined dispiritedly.

When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror. He had taken Crowley’s glasses off since they kept falling off his face and his wings were unfolded since he had inspected them a few hours ago and hadn’t bothered to put them away. “That’s not me,” he told himself. “I— I am  _ not  _ that  _ demon  _ in the mirror!” he shouted.

Aziraphale crumpled back into his seat. He was so tired. He was so lost. He needed somebody to help him get back on his feet. He needed Crowley.

Speak of the devil… or demon. The bell to the bookshop rang and Aziraphale heard a familiar voice. He quickly put his wings away and donned Crowley’s shades.

“Hiya, Aziraphale! Mind if we let ourselves in?”

Aziraphale turned to the door and greeted his visitors. “Johnson! Crowley! Did you two have a good time at the park?”

Johnson nodded, his cheeks tinted red from the cold.

“I’ve got some cocoa boiling in the kitchen,” Aziraphale informed the young boy. “You can go serve yourself while I talk to Crowley.”

Johnson eagerly ran into the kitchen in search of the sweet, chocolatey drink, and Aziraphale turned to Crowley. He was still in his Nanny outfit, but had reverted back to his normal, laid-back personality.

“You look silly in that getup.” He gestured to the jackets that could probably shelter an entire city.

“Oh believe me,” Crowley said, flopping down into one of Aziraphale’s armchairs. “If it weren’t freezing out, I’d change out of these jackets and this bloody corset.”

“I don’t understand why you wear that thing.”

“And I don’t understand why you wear that stupid bow-tie.”

“Tartan’s stylish!” Aziraphale said with mock offense.

Crowley smiled. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Aziraphale sighed. “But I’ll admit, it’s good to see you.” He hesitated. “Crowley… I truly  _ am _ sorry that I snapped at you this morning.”

“It’s fine. I forgive you.” Crowley chuckled at himself. “No… that’s your area, innut? You were even able to forgive me.”

“That was when we were just an angel and a demon,” answered Aziraphale.

Crowley addressed the elephant in the room. “D’you find anything yet?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No. But I’m thinking of checking the internet once more. But, oh, I’m so tired I don’t think I can do it.” He made a subtle pouting face directed at Crowley.

Crowley sighed, giving into the angel’s temptation. “If I miraculously search for an answer, will you come home to my flat for the night?”

Aziraphale nodded. “Oh yes! Thank you so so much!”

“Whatever.” Crowley directed his attention to the bookshop’s desktop. After a moment of searching he made an announcement. “Sorry, I found nothing.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Oh well. I see if I can pay Anathema a visit tomorrow.”

“Worry ‘bout that tomorrow.” Crowley stretched out as long as a snake on the armchair. “Just come back to my flat.”

“Okay.”

When Johnson returned from the kitchen with a chocolate moustache, and Crowley unsuccessfully attempted to borrow a cassette from the bookshop (Aziraphale had stopped lending Crowley cassette tapes after the demon had returned a Bach's music taped over by Freddie Mercury's vocals) the three drove home, enjoying the snow from inside the warm Bentley.


	8. His Only Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmm that angst.

Everything went downhill two days till Christmas. You wouldn’t be able to tell that from the morning events, however. But there’s always a calm before the storm.

“What’s the plan for today?” Crowley asked groggily as he woke up.

Aziraphale, of course, was already dressed and wearing Crowley’s glasses again. “I’m going out to Tadfield today. To visit Anathema.”

“D’you need me to drive you there?” Crowley asked, sitting up and grabbing an extra pair of glasses from the collection he kept in his nightstand.

“That’s quite alright. I think I’ll just take a bus.” In Aziraphale’s voice there was a strong undertone of worry and desperation. Anathema was almost his only choice at finding the cure. If she couldn’t help… Aziraphale would have to try his risky option.

“C’mon An—Aziraphale. When I got the Bentley I told you that I would always give you a lift. It seriously is no trouble at all.”

Aziraphale smiled at Crowley. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m alright. I just don’t want to get in a car accident today.”

Crowley scoffed. “My driving isn’t  _ that  _ bad. And I’ve never  _ once  _ crashed the Bentley.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

“That one time doesn’t count. I drove through the ring of fire to save the world and get to you.”

Aziraphale wasn’t actually scared of Crowley’s driving. He just felt guilty for considering an option that Crowley would never approve of. And he never liked to ride with Crowley when he felt guilty.

“Well, I better head out. Goodbye, Crowley.” Aziraphale rushed out the door to catch the next bus heading into Tadfield.

“I’ll check in at the bookshop this evening?” Crowley called after him. Aziraphale didn’t hear him.

Newt was as bad at building gingerbread houses as he was at programming computers. “I don’t see why we can’t just eat these,” he said as the cookie walls of his house fell over for what was probably the tenth time in the hour.

Anathema giggled at her boyfriend. She was already decorating her well constructed house with gumdrops. A knock on the door interrupted their building.

“I’ll get that,” she announced. “Just keep holding your house together till it dries.”

“But it never dries.”

Anathema went to the door and opened it. “Aziraphale,” she greeted as pleasantly as she could. She found the man to be quite nice but she still held a grudge on him and his boyfriend for stealing and ruining her book. “Please, come in. Newt and I are building gingerbread houses.”

“Attempting to, at least,” Newt sighed as Anathema led their guest to the kitchen. “I would like to know who invented these things.”

“Ah, it was Crowley, I believe,” Aziraphale spoke up. “It was a Christmas gift to me many many years ago. They’re quite fun but I always had to miracle them to stay.”

When Newt’s house fell apart for the eleventh time, he gave up and started nibbling on the roof. “So to what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Well… you see. Crowley and I are facing a problem—”

“It’s not another Armeggedon, is it?” asked Newt.

“Oh no, not at all."

"Relationship problems?" asked Anathema.

"Um... no. But ever since the Armeggedon, we’ve been… changing. Anthema, you’re a witch so I was hoping you could help.”

“I prefer the term occultist, but sure. What’s the problem?”

Aziraphale stepped back for more space and spread out his wings. He took Crowley’s glasses off his face and lifted his head so Anathema and Newt could see. “I’m afraid that I… I might be turning into a demon.”

Anathema reached up to touch Aziraphale’s black feathers. “Is this happening to Crowley too?”

“Yes. His feathers are turning white and his eyes are looking more… I suppose 'normal' would be an appropriate term. Plus, I think he’s getting nicer.”

“Don’t angels turn into demons all the time?” asked Newt.

“They don’t ‘turn’ normally. Usually demons are created when an angel falls from Heaven. When they are Damned.”

“And you’re sure it isn’t normal for your feathers to change with the season. I know some birds do that,” Newt said, trying his best to add something helpful.

Aziraphale sighed, slightly frustrated. “No. And we are not birds, young man.”

Newt shrugged.

“I checked every book in my bookshop and checked the entire internet twice. Yet I found nothing. Is there anything you can do? Did Agnes predict this? Please, you’re practically my only choice.”

“Agnes only made prophecies up till the end of the world,” Newt said, eyeing Anathema. Aziraphale didn’t need to know about the burned sequel.

“And as for me,” said Anathema. “I only know how to treat humans. And though I may dabble in the supernatural, I don’t know anything about celestial problems.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale sadly.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Anathema apologized. “Please, can you stay for some lunch?”

“That’s alright, thank you.” Aziraphale forced a smile. “I ought to go check my bookshop once more. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas…” Anathema and Newt said as they watched Aziraphale leave.

He was very nervous on the bus home. He now only had one choice left… but should he take it? Should he… contact the angels? Aziraphale assessed the facts. If he contacted the angels, they could very well use this against him in their war against the humans, not to mention Crowley would be outraged. But if it all worked out, if the angels did what they were supposed to do, Aziraphale would be an angel again. And that was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

When Aziraphale arrived at the bookshop, he went to close all the shutters to find they were still closed from earlier in the week. Hesitantly, he pulled the rug out from over his chalk circle used for contacting Heaven, took off Crowley’s glasses, and lit the candles. The ambience added by the flickering candles and the sound of traffic made this decision seem even more crucial.

Aziraphale recalled the last time he had contacted the angels. They hadn't helped then, they weren’t even interested in helping Aziraphale or stopping Armageddon. So why did he think they would help him now?

Aziraphale didn’t want to but he finished the ritual and soon found that the line had opened. “I’m looking for… Gabriel?” he spoke with a shaking voice.

A moment later, someone came to the line. It sounded just as if an operator had transferred a call on an earthly telephone, just on a grander scale. “Yes, hello. Who is this?” the archangel spoke in the same tone a bored businessman might use.

Aziraphale was surprised that he was actually talking to Gabriel. “It’s me… Aziraphale.”

The line was silent.

“I… I need some help and I’m afraid that you are the only ones that can help me.”

“What’s the matter?” Gabriel asked, his tone not changing.

“I…” Aziraphale had trouble forming the words. “My wings are… they are turning black. And my eyes look like those of a—a demon.”

The line was silent for another moment. “I see. Is this transformation happening to that demon partner of yours as well?”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale was surprised that Gabriel would ask about him. “Yes, him too.” Aziraphale cursed silently. If Crowley found out that Aziraphale had disclosed his information to Gabriel, he wouldn’t like it.

“Would you like it if we send some angels down to deal with this?” Gabriel asked.

Aziraphale’s head snapped up and a real smile spread across his face. “Oh yes, I would like that very much!”

Just as the conversation was finishing, two figures sat in a vintage car outside the bookshop. A nanny and a large boy sitting in a Bentley. Ashtoreth frowned, she could sense that something was wrong. Through a very small gap between the window shutters and the end of the window itself (such a small gap that no mortal would notice it, only concerned 'demon partners'), she could see Aziraphale kneeling in front of a column of blue light. Aziraphale was contacting the angels.

“Stay here, Johnson,” Ashtoreth hissed. “I’ll be a moment.

Crowley rushed inside the bookshop, miracling himself back into his normal outfit. Sometimes, in moments of stress, he’d forget himself and do casual miracles despite knowing that it wasted his energy. He made an angry hissing noise as he ran through the bookshop door, and the bell by the door rang violently.

“Thank you, Gabriel,” the treacherous angel said before the blue column vanished.

“You  _ bastard! _ ” Crowley shouted. 

Aziraphale turned his head in surprise. “C—Crowley? What are you—”

“What were you thinking?! What were you bloody thinking?! Contacting the  _ angels?! _ ” Crowley started pacing the floor of the bookshop angrily, his eyes wandering all around. He couldn’t meet Aziraphale’s eyes.

“It was my only choice,” Aziraphale admitted.

“Only choice?!” hissed Crowley. “It wasn't your only choice! Your other choice was to give up! To abandon those… those nasty excuses for angels and finally accept what’s happening to you and me! To leave them behind and be content with  _ me!” _

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, tears welling in his eyes. “You don’t think I didn’t want to do that?! I wanted to, but… I can’t leave my side.”

“Why do you obsess over the sides? Why is it always Heaven versus Hell?! You were against it when Armageddon was coming so why are you stuck on it now?”

“This is a more personal matter than Armageddon. I just feel so… isolated from the life I used to know.”

“You think I don’t feel that too?” Crowley asked, finally meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “You think I’m just completely okay with turning into an angel?!”

“Well of course, you’re turning from something bad into something nice. I’m the other way around. Besides, Hell probably wouldn't even think to help you.”

Crowley took an angry step towards Aziraphale and pointed a finger at him accusingly. “I am  _ not _ nice! And I am  _ not _ bad! Aziraphale, we are _in—bet—ween_! Just accept it!”

Aziraphale gave a defeated sigh. “It’s too late, Crowley. I told Gabriel everything.”

“You don’t know how big of a jerk that Gabriel is. When we swapped bodies, you didn’t even get a trial. Gabriel just told you to shut up and die.” Crowley still held a grudge on the archangel for speaking to Aziraphale that way.

Aziraphale flinched. He knew how mean all the angels were, but he’d have to deal with it. “It is what it is.”

“They’re gonna use it against us,” Crowley warned.

“No. There’s no more  _ us _ .” Aziraphale was done with Crowley trying to keep this thing going. “The angels are coming soon. No doubt to pick me up and bring me back to Heaven.”

Crowley groaned, running a hand through his hair.

Aziraphale attempted to turn the conversation more sweetly. “It’s been nice… Crowley. Knowing you. It was a good six thousand years.”

“You don’t mean that,” Crowley growled.

“I do.”

“No. If you did, you wouldn’t be…  _ abandoning me. _ ”

Aziraphale hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

Crowley knew he wasn’t. “We never got that picnic you promised.” And with that, he turned away from Aziraphale for what was no doubt the last time.

“Is he coming?” Johnson asked, as Crowley entered the Bentley.

Crowley took off his sunglasses revealing shining, brown eyes. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. Only a few chapters left! But trust me, there is a bunch of action coming. By the way, who's 'side' are you on? Aziraphale rejoining the angels? Or Crowley accepting that they are on their own?


	9. A Hostage in Heaven

On Christmas Eve, Crowley did not want to get out of bed. To be fair, he normally didn’t, but that desire to sleep in sometimes ended with him sleeping for a year or two… or a hundred. But there was an eleven-year-old boy in his flat that would want to go do... whatever eleven-year-old boys liked to do on Christmas Eve, so Crowley forced himself out of bed, grabbed a pair of sunglasses, and left his room.

Johnson was already sitting in the living room, reading a book. It was no doubt his own since Crowley didn’t own any novels. “Good afternoon,” he greeted coldly.

“Afternoon?” Crowley checked the time to confirm he had heard correctly. “What are you talking about? It's 11:30”

“Practically afternoon.”

Crowley casually sat on the couch beside the boy. “Are you angry at me because I slept in? ‘Cuz, first of all, I usually do that. And second of all, if I were you, an eleven-year-old boy having this nice flat to myself, I’d go bloody crazy. Eating all my food, graffiting all my papers, trashing my plants.” Crowley recalled the time he invited a few demons over for tea (a terrible idea, do not attempt at home) and the many times Warlock had trashed his parents’ estate. “Actually… you didn’t do that, did you?”

“No. And I’m upset that you and your boyfriend are fighting,” Johnson answered.

“Why? Why would you altruistically worry about someone? Stupid waste of time, really.”

Johnson tilted his head, a gesture that Crowley recognized after raising Warlock for eleven years. It was the gesture young children made when an adult used a grown-up word and a sentence that would require some thinking.

“Altruistic means selfless,” Crowley said, helping the boy along. Demons weren’t supposed to know words like that but being around a kind bookshop owner for a while taught Crowley a few things.

“Well… isn’t that what you do for Aziraphale?”

“No,” Crowley said finitely in the sort of stubbornness he got as a demon. “I care for him for selfish reasons. I care for him because he’s my only friend, and I can’t imagine the world without him, and whenever he’s in trouble I get beyond worried, and I think existence without him would be worthless and would probably end with me drinking Holy—” Under his glasses, Crowley’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh bugger! Okay, fine, I  _ do _ care for him.” He had always known this subconsciously, but it was hard for a demon to admit to caring about an angel.

“Okay, so why don’t you make up?” Johnson asked. “What are you even fighting ‘bout anyway?”

“Oh… it’s nothing a kid would understand,” Crowley lied, it was actually nothing no human being could comprehend. But because Johnson possessed that type of innocent wisdom and (shudder shudder) sympathy that some kids were lucky to have, Crowley relented to him in a simple matter. 

“It’s just that he thinks he’s becoming this... person that he’s not too proud of and he thinks it’s because I have a bad influence on him. Because he’s changing, he doesn’t really… hang with his friends anymore. But his friends are a bunch of arseholes who don’t care about his interests or opinions, just how he may help them.”

“They don’t sound like very good friends.”

“Exactly. Yet, Aziraphale contacted them yesterday, asking for help. He just gave up on… well, everything and says he’s going back to the life he hated. I may have acted foolishly, I got very angry and just yelled at him, but… the stakes are higher that you can imagine.”

“Oh… are you sorry that you became angry at him?”

“‘Course I am.”

“So why don’t you apologize? Then he’ll apologize back and you guys will be fine.”

“I’m afraid we won’t ‘be fine’, Johnson. I’ve been on this earth much longer than you and I know it won’t be fine.”

“But apologizing can’t hurt.” The boy gave Crowley an innocent smile. “In your life have you ever thought you should’ve done something but didn’t and then ended up regretting it. You might regret not apologizing if Aziraphale leaves for his friends.”

Crowley actually had recent regrets from a very similar situation. On the day of Armeggedon, he had told Aziraphale that he was fleeing Earth and claimed that he wouldn’t even think of him anymore. And when he eventually thought of visiting the bookshop and apologizing to the angel, he found the bookshop aflame and his best friend gone. Ever since, he could never shake the fear of actually losing Aziraphale.

Crowley suddenly had a change of heart. “Johnson… actually, do you mind if I run to the bookshop real quick?.”

The blinds to the bookshop were open. In fact, this was the work of someone waiting outside the bookshop so that someone inside would see what was about to take place on the pavement. The someone outside smiled as he watched a black Bentley pull over in front of the shop. The someone, a man in a very nice lavender grey suite (the quality signified the man was preparing for a party of sorts, likely a Christmas party), had not been waiting for a while. He had known the perfect time to arrive on the terrible planet.

Crowley exited the Bentley and approached the man. “What the bloody hell are you doing here, Gabriel?” he hissed. He didn’t seem to possess the same skill of demonic hissing and growling he had before, but Crowley still prided himself with his ability to provoke some fear on his own.

“Crawley!” Gabriel grinned widely. It was the type of grin that a businessman would give. Not real, yet not entirely fake since the businessman would’ve been doing the smile for a while now.

“Crowley,” he corrected as he peered into the shop windows. “Aziraphale,” he muttered. “Where the heaven are you? Come out here and see this.” He turned back to the archangel. “What do you want? Did you send someone in there for Aziraphale? What are going to do to him?”

“Whoa, whoa.” Gabriel took a step back as Crowley took a threatening step towards him. “I’m not here for Aziraphale. I came here for you.”

“What? But you told him—”

“I told him that we’d send some angels down to deal with this… predicament. And that's what I’ve done. But I wouldn’t come down here myself just because some rebellious angel is getting what he deserved.”

Crowley growled. “He deserved  _ none _ of this. If this is  _ your  _ doing—”

Gabriel continued speaking. “No, I came down here to get a new recruit. A demon who might now join our side.”

Crowley realized Gabriel was talking about him. “I’ll never join you angels.”

“I thought you’d say that,” Gabriel said showing no signs that Crowley’s stubbornness might be getting to him. He just snapped his fingers and Crowley was immediately somewhere else.

The next thing Crowley knew, he was in Heaven. He wasn’t dead, no. He was seated in the vast and empty floor of Heaven as a guest… or a hostage. He was tied to the chair in front of two angels: Gabriel and Michael .

“Crawley!” Gabriel exclaimed when he finally was able to lift his head. “You’re awake. We were worried that you’d sleep through Christmas.”  
“Why am I here?” Crowley growled. Under his glasses his eyes darted across the floor looking for clues. He found one rather obvious clue: a large tub of water (the Holy kind). “You know Holy water won’t kill me,” Crowley lied. “Didn’t work at my trial in Hell, so what is this for?” Crowley was afraid they knew of his and Aziraphale’s body swap.

“Oh it’s not to kill you,” Michael spoke up. They wore a small poinsettia in their hair for Christmas, but their outfit was otherwise normal and boring. “It’s to recruit you.”

“Recruit me?”

“As an angel,” Gabriel and Michael said in unison.

Crowley chuckled humorlessly. “An angel? And why do you think I’d help you?”

Gabriel looked at Crowley as if the answer were the most obvious thing. “That’s what the Holy Water is for. We believe a soak will turn you completely loyal.”

Crowley gulped. He was pretty sure he couldn’t survive Holy Water. “And Aziraphale? Does he get this special spa treatment as well?”

“We do actually have a surprise for your boyfriend,” Gabriel said.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Crowley muttered. “He’s more my… romantically entwined celestial being.”

“I don’t care what you want to label it,” Gabriel said. “I just care about how Heaven is going to get a new angel.” The archangel finally showed some emotion. “Oh, this has never happened before. Sure, Hell gets fallen angels all the time, but Heaven  _ never _ gets forgiven demons.”

“Hell is going to get a new demon tonight,” Michael added.

“What do you mean?” A sense of urgency touched Crowley’s voice as he realized what the two meant.

“Well, if you’d let me talk,” Gabriel started. “What’s going to happen is we will take you to Heaven (we already did that) and then soak you in Holy Water. No doubt Aziraphale is going to come attempt to rescue you because of the thing your humans like to call ‘true love’ (ew). When he gets here, we’ll Damn him. And so, our temporary alliance with Hell will end with each side getting a new member.” Gabriel finished telling his plan proudly. “What do you think?”

Crowley made no response. The angels’ mistake was assuming that Aziraphale would come and rescue him, but Aziraphale didn’t know Crowley had been taken and since he was pretty well pissed at Crowley he wouldn’t be too concerned about his whereabouts right now. Crowley was sure that Aziraphale wouldn’t be in any danger tonight if he didn’t let the angels on about their fight. “Okay, I—er,” Crowley eyed the Holy Water wearily. He would still try to stall for some time. He just wanted to enjoy a few more moments as a demon with freewill. “I’ve got some questions.”

One of Crowley’s proudest moments was the first time he ever received a medal in Hell for teaching the humans how to stall. He had always considered himself an expert in stalling, but last time in Heaven he had made a mistake. He thought that talking about peace in front of the angels would buy him some time, but it seemed Gabriel didn’t want to hear any talk of peace. Now, Crowley would try to get Gabriel to talk about this plan he was so proud of.

“Why, of course, we’d love to answer them. Although, we must wrap this up before midnight, we want to surprise everyone at the Christmas party.” That explained the slightly festive getup.

“Right.” Crowley was unsettled as being referred to as a Christmas gift. “Um, so why are doing this anyway? Why not just let us be on Earth?”

“Um, because why would we just ‘let you be’ when we could use you to benefit our war against Hell? For the past few months we have been working with the demons to take you two down, but with you on our side and Aziraphale on their side, we can resume fighting. And, let me just say, I am so glad I don’t have to listen to Beelzebub talk anymore. The way ze talks with all the z’s, I don’t know how you stood it. Micheal, that was your idea, wasn’t it? The temporary alliance with Hell?”

Michael nodded. “Yes, but don’t think for a second that I was proud to join with our enemies.”

Gabriel continued to rant about how annoying Beelzbub was and how inhabitable a place Hell was and other things Crowley didn’t care to hear. But he allowed the archangel to enjoy his own voice while he evaluated his existence.

_ I never did get to eat an oyster, _ he thought.  _ Never got that picnic either. And I left Johnson at my flat _ .  _ And I left Aziraphale thinking I was still angry at him. I mean, I am  _ still _ angry at him, but he won’t know it’s because I care about him.  _

“Imagine,” Gabriel said as Crowley started tuning back into reality. “Imagine if this was how the Ineffable Plan was supposed to end all along. With a demon turning into an angel and an angel turning into a demon.”

Crowley didn’t like to hear Gabriel talking about the Ineffable Plan. It had been the thing he and Aziraphale had known about since the beginning and had only just told Gabriel about it a few months ago. And now Gabriel probably prided himself in being an expert and administrator on the Ineffable Plan. It was just the sort of thing he’d do. Yet, Crowley wouldn’t be surprised if this had been God’s Ineffable Plan all along. She liked to play cruel games with the universe and Crowley usually found he was the butt of it all.

But Crowley knew he would never become an angel. This day would end with him ceasing to exist as his being was dissolved in Holy Water. And as soon as the angels failed in recruiting him, they’d fly down to Earth and take their anger out on Aziraphale.

“Should we start?” Michael proposed. If they were getting tired of Gabriel talking, they showed no signs of it. But they probably weren’t since angels weren’t coded to be negative towards other angels. “Crawley, we are so proud to have you join us again.”

“Oh, yeah. Great to be here,” Crowley lied. He adjusted his seating in the chair he was tied to and looked around the floor. He felt something change, like another being had just arrived. He gasped as he recognized the feeling. “He isn’t supposed to be here.”

A moment later, a man in a tartan suit walked across the floor. Aziraphale had his black wings out and his demonic eyes were visible for everyone to see. He no longer looked reserved. In fact, Crowley had never seen the angel look so brave. If the circumstances were different, Crowley would’ve cried tears of joy at seeing his angel. Unfortunately, he knew this would only end terribly. “Aziraphale!” he shouted across the floor. “You can't be here! Fly away!”

Aziraphale just gave Crowley a thumbs up, gesturing that he prematurely believed all would work out. If you are wondering how he had known that Crowley was in trouble, think back to the boy in Crowley’s flat. Johnson was a special boy that had been involved in many interesting situations. He was born in a Satanic church, the son of an American ambassador but ended up being an orphan because of a mistake made by some nuns. He had lived in Tadfield his entire life near the Antichrist. And it has been scientifically proven that long-term exposure to an Antichrist can have effects on your brian. So when Crowley had been abducted by the angels, Johnson suspected something was wrong. He ran to the bookshop to tell this to Aziraphale. The angel who had been waiting in his bookshop for Gabriel immediately knew what had happened. Gabriel had taken Crowley instead. So, Aziraphale sent Johnson to Anathema’s and Newt’s on a bus that arrived in Tadfield miraculously fast, and flew up to Heaven to save Crowley.

“Gabriel, Micheal. I ask that you unhand this demon,” he said bravely.

Gabriel smirked. Aziraphale was right on time. “But who is the demon?” he asked. “Because you sure look like one.”

Aziraphale hissed. “I was wrong to trust you.” He said this Gabriel but looked at Crowley. This was his apology. 

“Yes, you were,” Gabriel agreed simply. He returned to the task at hand. “Now, Micheal, we should probably get on with it.”

Michael walked towards Crowley and untied him from the chair. Once Crowley was free, he quickly escaped before Michael could lead him to the tub and rushed towards Aziraphale. Before he could reach him however, he found himself stuck (Gabriel’s miracle). He couldn’t get to his angel, but he shouted warnings at him anyway. “Aziraphale! You have to leave! They’re going to try and turn me into an angel and they’re going to Da—”

Before Crowley could finish, Gabriel snapped his fingers and he fell unconscious. “He’s a bit more unwilling that we anticipated, but we can fix that after the Holy Water.”

Michael caught Crowley before he fell to the floor and started to drag him towards the tub.

“Get your bloody hands off him!” Aziraphale yelled, running to intercept them. “No one is going to put him in Holy Water. He  _ will _ die!”

“What are you talking about? Crowley survived his trial in Hell.”

“That was me. We swapped bodies for our trials—or  _ his _ trial and my  _ execution _ ,” Aziraphale corrected as he remembered what Crowley told him.

“I see… that does put a damper in our plans.” Gabriel turned to Micheal. “Actually… carry on with it. We just won’t get another angel.”

Michael resumed dragging Crowley towards the tub, his leather shoes left scuff marks on the pure white tiles.

“Stop it!” Aziraphale shouted. He ran towards Michael and pulled Crowley from their arms. As he did this, his shoe caught on the corner of the tub and kicked it over, spilling Holy Water all over the floor. Aziraphale pulled Crowley away so he wouldn't be harmed. He also avoided the Water himself just in case he was too far a demon now.

He turned back to Michael and Gabriel. “Why must you continue on with this? Why can’t— why can’t you just leave it be?”

Gabriel held a hand up, and Michael stopped making an approach to take back Crowley. “But you can’t leave it alone. Can you, Aziraphale?”

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, his eyes still shut. “You have to get out of here. Don’t listen to Gabriel…”

“You still are stuck on the sides,” he continued. “If you hand Crowley over to us, we can give you a side again.” He held a hand out to Aziraphale.

“I—” Aziraphale looked down at Gabriel’s hand. He, with his feathered wings of black and white, was  _ so _ tempted to become an angel once more.

But he was holding a sleeping demon in his arms. No, he wasn’t a demon, he had just hung around the wrong people. Whatever he was, Aziraphale cared for him and couldn’t give him up to be executed. “I can’t. But if you’re up to offering peace—”

Gabriel had no interest in peace. “Very well, Aziraphale. I have just one last thing to say.”

Aziraphale adjusted Crowley in his arms so he wouldn’t come in contact with the advancing puddle. “Yes?” he asked.

Gabriel smirked and leaned closer to the angel for the last time. “ _ Damn you.” _

The angel fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. First of all, I apologize for not publishing in a few days, I've just been busy with Christmas things. My sister got me this really cool mug with Aziraphale and Crowley on it, and I've started drinking coffee just to use it. Second of all, I apologize for that cliffhanger. Actually... I'm not sorry >:). All will be resolved anyway (or will it?) Anyways, if you guys could leave feedback or correct silly grammar mistakes I make, I'd greatly appreciate it.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and belated merry Christmas and an early happy New Years!!


	10. All I feel is Love... and the unbearable pain of Falling to Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: minor character death, some violence (it's not overly violent but a character has violent intentions), and themes of a character lacking self-preservation

Crowley’s eyes flew open as felt the impact of falling back to Earth. He felt to make sure that his body was still alive. It was a miracle that he hadn’t discorporated. Actually… it probably was a miracle.

Still, he was in a great deal of pain. He most likely broke something, but that could be dealt with later. Crowley faintly recalled falling, but he didn’t know where to. He looked up at the night sky as snowflakes started to fall and listened to the late night traffic as people rushed home to spend Christmas Eve with their families. He was in London, so that was good. He seemed to be lying on the roof of some building. Wait… Crowley recognized this roof, it was the rooftop where he would wait for his friend to be finished making the sales of the day. He would wait here to take that person on drives into the country, but usually the person wouldn’t get the hints Crowley was dropping. He was on top of Aziraphale’s bookshop. Speaking of Aziraphale, where was he?

He remembered Aziraphale had been dragging Crowley away from a puddle of Holy Water before they fell. A chute had opened below their feet and… A snowflake fell on Crowley’s face, giving him a slightly burning sensation. “Was that… Holy Water?” He felt the rooftop as the snow started to pile up. It was indeed Holy Water, yet it didn’t dissolve Crowley. “I really am too far angelic.”

“Aziraphale?” Crowley groaned quietly, hoping the angel was nearby, but he received no answer. “Aziraphale?” he asked slightly louder, sitting up. Yep, he had definitely broken something, but he willed his body to work just as he had willed the Bentley to function beyond its abilities. His body was just a machine and if Crowley had to, he could suppress the pain.

After surveying the rooftop, Crowley found no sign of his friend. It was unlikely that he would’ve gone inside without Crowley, but Crowley climbed down from the roof and entered the bookshop anyway.

“Aziraphale?” he asked again. The lights were on and he could hear someone in the kitchen. But who came from the kitchen and met Crowley was not Aziraphale.

“Crowley?” Anathema the occultist asked. “What happened? Johnson came out to Tadfield telling us that Aziraphale went to rescue you and—”

“Has he been through here?” Crowley asked urgently. “Aziraphale?”

Anathema shook her head. “Crowley, you need to sit down. You look like you’ve been through hell.”

“Heaven, actually” Crowley sniffed. “And I’m fine. Or… I will be once I find Aziraphale.”

A second later, Newt entered the room. “What’s going on? We heard a thump on the roof, and Johnson thought it was Santa Claus. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. Afterall, I’ve met aliens and witches and Satan and— oh my god, Crowley, you look terrible!”

“I said I’m fine!” he hissed. And if Crowley kept repeating that to himself, he would be. He  _ was _ fine and he was  _ not _ in any pain. He would  _ not _ let anything keep him from finding Aziraphale. If only he could remember…

“We were in Heaven and Aziraphale had me in his arms,” Crowley started retracing his steps aloud. “He kept backing up from a puddle of Holy Water… so I wouldn’t get wet. That turned out to be useless.” Crowley felt the dampness of his jacket, a slight stinging erupted in his fingers. “Gabriel had said something to Aziraphale before we fell. What was it he had said?” Crowley racked his mind to remember. “He said… he said…”

Newt and Anathema looked on as Crowley struggled to recall the events, worried for their friend.

Crowley’s eyes suddenly went wide with realization. He had lost his sunglasses sometime over the events of the day, but he could care less. “Oh  _ fuck _ , I know where he is!” Without as much as a goodbye, he ran out the bookshop door, causing the bell to ring loudly. Ignoring the intense pain in his legs, he had one thought in mind. He had to get to Hell and he had to save Aziraphale.

Just as Crowley had, Aziraphale opened his eyes when hit the ground. Only he wasn’t on a rooftop in Soho, he was quite literally in Hell. Aziraphale knew this as soon as he came to his senses. He knew that the pungent smell of sulfur, the intense heat, and the excruciating pain in his wings could only mean one thing.

“I’m a demon,” he said, a sob building up his throat. “I’ve Fallen.”

He felt exhausted, and he wasn’t sure if that was because of the Fall or the last miracle he did ensuring that Crowley wouldn’t discorporate when he fell to Earth. Would Aziraphale even ever see Crowley again? And did he get his apology up in Heaven? Would six thousand years of something greater than friendship end in this?

Aziraphale sat up and looked around. Crowley had always described Hell to be very crowded and full of demons, but Aziraphale was in a deserted corner of the plane. He was in a sort of dark cave with volcanic sand that radiated heat and rock walls that gave off a pale light. Aziraphale was completely alone.

It had not been a very good year for Hastur. His friend, Ligur, had been dissolved right before his eyes, he was stuck in an ansaphone machine for a few hours, he had discorporated, and he had never gotten to fight in the war against Heaven. On top of it all, he had been grounded to stay in Hell ever since he lost his body (it wasn’t his fault Crowley was both a traitor and a manic driver. But since Hastur was present when the alarm went off signalling that an Angel had Fallen, he was happy to be the one to welcome the new fella.

Hastur lurked through the caves to a cavity created by the Fall of the new demon. When he reached the cavity and saw a figure covered in black feathers, he cleared his throat and started reading from the script. Clearing his throat did nothing, Hastur always spoke with a scratchy voice that was more terrible than all the screeching door hinges on Earth. “Greetings, new demon. I, Duke Hastur, welcome you on behalf of Hell. Now, you may be feeling some pain especially in your shoulders and wings, but that will subside. Being a demon isn’t much different that being an angel, you’re just transitioning from serving one master to another. You should find that being a demon is quite easy. Once you settle in, you will be assigned a job. If you have any questions, feel free to ask for assistance.” Haster lowered the yellowed sheet of paper from his face and looked back at the demon, expecting a reply. All he heard was sobbing.

An evil smile spread across Hastur’s face. He wasn’t supposed to pick on the new demons, but they so rarely showed any emotions and Hastur loved to pick on the emotional ones. “What’s wrong, little demon?” he taunted. “Sad because ya no longer get to be an angel at the top of the world. Well, welcome to real life. We all end up in Hell one way or another. Just know it was only ya fault, ya the one being punished.”

Hastur picked up a handful of black sand and threw it at the demon. “Oi! Stop your crying or I’ll have ya assigned to garbage duty for the next millenia.” That threat usually shut the new demons up but this one was very stubborn.

Hastur got close to the demon and pulled a black wing away from shielding his face. “Can ya even hear m— It’s you.” Hastur stumbled back in surprise. “I never expected  _ you.” _

Aziraphale, the peaceful angel precious to the treacherous Crowley was right in front of Hastur, miserable and vulnerable. Oh if only Crowley knew the things Hastur could do with his boyfriend. “Aziraphale,” he said evilly. “We actually know about ya down here. Ya so big, I believe ya deserve a  _ warm  _ welcome.”

The next thing Aziraphale knew, he was engulfed in a column of Hellfire. “Lucky for ya,” Hastur shouted over the intense crackling of the fire. “Hell’s got the warmest welcomes there are.”

Aziraphale shrieked in the Fire. It didn’t hurt at all, he was just surprised. And it made being a demon so much more surreal.

Hastur continued with his cackling. His black eyes grew wide with joy as he watched the demon flail around. “Oh, if only Crowley knew!”

Not a second later, the rocks roofing the cave broke in and someone landed in between Aziraphale and Hastur. It took Hastur a second to recognize Crowley with his almost white wings and his normal eyes. But he still had that crazed look in his eyes when he put his hands up and shouted at Hastur. “You stop this right now!” he commanded.

Hastur’s joy faded as he turned off the column of Fire. Aziraphale started to crawl towards Crowley, but he shouted at him to stop. “Aziraphale, no! Stay away from me.”

“What are ya doing here, traitor?” Hastur snarled. “Ya can get in a lot of trouble for trespassing in Hell. I can run and call for help and we’ll have ya punished for all ya crimes.”

“You aren’t going to be able to do that,” Crowley stated. He looked to be in no state for a fight. His ginger hair was a mess, a trail of blood trickled down the side of his face past his snake tattoo, his knees trembled as he struggled to hold himself up, and his jacket was dirty and damp with water. He took off his jacket and showed it to Hastur. “It’s snowing up in London right now.”

“I don’t give a bless about the weather in London,” Hastur growled.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d like to know that it’s not just normal snow, Duke of Hell. You see, due to a little accident in Heaven, Holy Water got mixed in with the precipitation.” Crowley shook his jacket and droplets of water fell to the floor. “What I have on my jacket is the melted snowflakes of Holy Water. The  _ real _ deal this time.”

Hastur knew Crowley liked to mess around with his Holy Water. But he also knew Crowley had been praised for teaching humans the art of bluffing. “How do I know you’re not bluffing again? You’re covered in snow, so why aren’t you dead?”

Crowley brushed a finger against the jacket, his face showed no signs of pain, just pure fury. “Look at my wings, Hastur. Holy Water can’t hurt me anymore. So either you let me and Aziraphale leave and tell absolutely no one about this, or I hand you my jacket.”

Hastur eyed the stylish black jacket and a nervous drop of grease slid down his oily face. “I— I can’t let you leave.”

“Very well then, Hastur. I’d say that it was nice knowing you, but then I’d be lying. But I’d like you to know that killing you again will give me great satisfaction.”

As Hastur turned to run back down the cave, Crowley flung his jacket towards the demon. A few droplets of water flew off with momentum and hit Hastur. His last words as he dissolved into a screaming, boiling pile of goo: “I hate you, Crowley!”

Crowley immediately swerved around on his heels and rushed towards the fallen angel. “Are you alright?! Where are you hurt?!” he asked urgently as he dried himself off with a towel he had miracled.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale cried bittersweetly, glad to see his best friend standing above him. “Crowley, they did it. They Damned me.”

“I know, Aziraphale.” Crowley did the only thing that seemed logical in that moment. He leaned down and threw his arms around Aziraphale, enjoying his existence. “You don’t deserve any of it,” he said into his shoulder. He still smelled like old books and baked pastries amid all the burning sulfur and volcanic sand. “You saved me, Aziraphale. Thank you.”

“No. I should’ve never contacted Gabriel. I was so stupid, I don’t know why I expected him to actually help. If I had just— if I had just listened to you, none of  _ this _ would’ve ever happened.”

“We can’t change the past,” Crowley said as he struggled to stand up and offered a hand to Aziraphale. “But you don’t have to accept it. You can come back to Earth… if you’d be happy with me.”

A tired smile spread across Aziraphale’s face. He would never accept being a demon but he could accept being with this demon. “Oh, look at you. You’re in no state to be helping me up. Fall from the sky or something?”

“Just take my hand, Aziraphale.” Crowley’s brown eyes shone in the dim, pale light. Aziraphale got the same feeling he sensed all the way back when visiting Tadfield for the first time with Crowley: love.

Aziraphale did so and put an arm around Crowley. A moment later, they were transported back to Crowley’s flat, safe and sound. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should really stop writing until midnight. There is only one chapter left, huzzah!


	11. A Car Ride and a Picnic

_ Earth _ , Crowley thought as he woke on his bed.  _ God, I love the Earth. Yes, it’s cold and wet and full of annoying humans and disobedient plants, but it’s home. Earth, where I can sleep and listen to Queen and drink wine with my best friend.  _ Crowley hugged his black sheets to his chest and sniffed. “I’m home,” he murmured happily.

“Dear boy, you’ve been home for a week,” he heard Aziraphale say with slight annoyance from the other side of the room. “I didn’t expect for you to be that tired after our ordeal on Christmas Eve. You missed Christmas _and_ New Year's.”

Crowley sat up and saw Aziraphale standing at the foot of his bed with a smile on his face. “A week?” He groaned sarcastically. “I only slept for a week? Can I go back to bed and sleep for the entire year?”

Aziraphale laughed. “No, dear. And besides, I believe this year will be a good one. I don’t think Heaven nor Hell had any big plans for 2020. Perhaps they’ll just leave Earth be.”

Crowley grinned. “There’s my optimist!” He stood up and put his long arms around Aziraphale. He felt completely fine, his injuries from the fall must’ve healed.

“I tried to keep you safe from that fall back to Earth,” Aziraphale said. “I’m sorry that you got hurt, but I miracled away your injuries.”

“You shouldn’t have done that. I was fine.”

“You weren’t,” Aziraphale retorted. “And yet… you still came to save me.” Aziraphale lifted himself onto his tippy-toes and placed a kiss on Crowley’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Crowley blushed. “Oh… erm yea— I mean, it was nothing. You saved me so… it was the right thing to do.”

Aziraphale smirked. “And since when do demons do the right thing?”

"Eh, a friend has taught me a thing or two about being good." Crowley grabbed his sunglasses from his bedside table and put them on. “Where’s Johnson?”

“Johnson? Oh… er…?”

“Aziraphale! Losing a flaming sword is one thing, but losing a human child?”

“Oh I’m sorry but who was it again that lost the Antichrist eleven years ago? And I didn’t lose him. I sent him to Anathema and Newt when I went to save you and apparently they recognized him as one of their neighbor’s child. Turns out Adam Young lied to us about the boy being an orphan. They were waiting in my bookshop to tell me the news, and then they went back to Tadfield to tell Adam to return the kid to his family. He got to spend Christmas at home.”

“Glad to hear that. But I’ll miss the fella, he was a nice kid.”

“Yes… in comparison to other boys his age.”

Crowley observed Aziraphale. His wings (which were now completely black) were put away, but his yellow eyes with small piercing pupils were visible. He was wearing a dark gray jacket over his normal sweater and tartan tie.

“Is that... one of my jackets?” Crowley asked. He must admit, Aziraphale _did_ look good in his clothes.

“Oh… yes.” Aziraphale blushed. “I haven’t been able to return to the shop while staying here with you, so... I took it from your wardrobe. I hope that’s alright.”

“Yeah it’s alright. It looks good on you.”

Aziraphale felt his jacket and chuckled with a bit of melancholy. He had been through a lot in the past few weeks. “We’ve been together for six thousand years and yet I never fancied myself wearing your clothes. First you glasses and now your jacket.”

“Oh, you don’t need to borrow my sunglasses anymore, if you don’t want to,” Crowley said, digging in his pockets for something. He pulled out a small white case. “Merry Christmas, Aziraphale,” he said as he threw the case across the room.

Aziraphale caught it, opened it, and smiled. “Oh Crowley…”

“Contacts. Miracled them myself. They’ll look just like how your eyes used to be and they’ll never run out.”

Aziraphale put them in and smiled up at Crowley. He looked just like his old angelic self, the angel that Crowley so dearly loved.

Crowley grabbed the Bentley’s keys and jingled them. “How ‘bout I take you for a drive?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak.

“A nice,  _ slow _ one through the countryside. I'll keep pedestrian casualties down to a minimum. And we could have that picnic?”

A warm feeling spread through Aziraphale's chest. “Aw, I’d like that.” He miracled a picnic basket in his arms and looped his arm through Crowley’s.

Crowley led the way to the car. Two members of no side but their own sat in the Bentley as it made its way through the London streets.

“Traffic sucks today, Aziraphale,” Crowley complained as he regularly did when he reached a stop in the M25.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale grabbed his hand.

“Hmm?”

“You know you can call me Angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary readers, I have finished my first fanfic! I'd like to thank all you for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting on my work. This was very fun to write and I thank you all for your support. I hope everyone has a happy new year. Here's to a good 2021!


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